S.A. TV giant Bill Moll retiring as KLRN chief

A dynamic, but gentle, San Antonio TV giant is retiring from KLRN after 58 years in broadcasting.

After three years as KLRN CEO and president, Bill Moll said he is passing the public TV “mantle of responsibility” to Executive Vice President/Station Manager Mario Vasquez. Vasquez officially starts his new duties on Monday.

Moll’s last working day at the station is today. At 8 tonight on KLRN, “Texas Week with Rick Casey” will feature an interview with Moll. He’ll look back at some of the ups and downs of his career. Emphasized, of course, will be his most recent time at the helm of S.A.’s public station.

His history with KLRN actually began as far back as 50 years ago. The first words on the air were spoken by a young University of Texas graduate, namely Moll. Two years later, he became the KLRN station manager before moving on to a fabulous commercial TV career, which included helming KENS here as well as Clear Channel’s television group.

Moll, 74 and in tip-top health, looked back at his years at KLRN and shared highlights with me in a phone chat.

Although his original KLRN goal was to produce a daily local news program, as a lead-in to PBS’ national news, the finances just weren’t there for such an ambitious project, he said.

“So, the compromise was to do a one-a-week news program, which became our signature program.” That, of course, is “Texas Week with Rick Casey,” which focuses on the issues of San Antonio and surrounding areas. “We’ve now done 87 of them,” Moll said proudly.

He also reclaimed the Fiesta parades. For the past two years, KLRN has broadcast the three parades, uncut and commercial free. “Also, for the first time in history,” Moll said, “we broadcast the parades in HD, in both English and Spanish and did live streaming that went to 50 countries. Thanks to a strong commitment from parade sponsors, the float fests will continue on KLRN next spring.

Moll’s newest KLRN achievement debuts at 8:30 p.m. Thursday. It’s an arts and cultural collaboration with 29 of the nation’s top PBS stations called “Arts.” Moll said it will mix local and national segments, a la the old “PM Magazine,” and each city involved will produce its own intros.

Asia Ciaravino, longtime local actress and current president and CEO at The Playhouse here, will serve as the S.A. host of “Arts.”

On “Texas Week,” Moll also will talk of a truly low point of his KLRN tenure: an “evil act,” he said, that resulted in the recent lengthy service outage that affected many KLRN viewers.

It was worsened by two recent storms, but it actually started, Moll revealed, with “deliberate vandalism” by an unknown culprit. The broadcast tower’s wave guide was “breached,” he explained, and during an ensuing storm, water got in and flooded the signal. “Though we put a patch on it,” he said, a second storm came in and ruined that.

On tonight’s “Texas Week,” viewers will actually see a piece of the damaged wave guide. Though the tower is secure and secluded, way back from the road near Calaveras Lake, “you can’t get totally away from evil, if you will, and that was an evil act by somebody.”

Still, the great majority of his time at KLRN has been filled with upbeat moments. At his final board meeting, he recalled something his wife, Marilyn, said about her husband’s years at the public station: “She said, ‘I have never seen Bill more joyful in what he did every day.’ ”

What’s ahead for Moll? He’ll be consultant to a group of 20 independent privately held commercial, TV, radio and newspaper owners – ITG. “I’ll keep them current and connected,” he said, describing his clients as the last vestige that hasn’t sold out to the big conglomerates.

“I won’t have a daily operation to run,” he added, “but it forces me to stay engaged in the industry. This way, I can’t simply rock in my rocking chair.”